Beaten But Unbowed

Performance Artist Loses In Court, Continues On Stage

Karen Finley returns to Chicago this week, and no one expects the arrival to be quiet.

Hers has been a career of shocks, delighting some, needling others and outraging self-appointed moralists galore.

Nearly a decade ago, when the Evanston-bred performance artist played at a South Loop gallery, she coated her naked body with sauerkraut, raw eggs, kidney beans, peaches, pudding and beets. She mashed canned yams on her backside in a piece "about the abuse of the elderly," and she is probably most legendary for smearing her body with chocolate frosting (the Betty Crocker dark double variety, to be specific).

It took her no time to infuriate conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and wind up near the top of his most-wanted artist list. In 1994, a North Side nightclub canceled her planned appearances, citing a possible loss of its liquor license.

And then there was the lawsuit. Finley's battles with would-be censors and government funders have been epic. Last summer, she lost an eight-year battle over a grant given to her by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990 and then taken away on grounds that she disregarded general standards of decency. After years of headlines and some respite, the news seemed to bring Finley back to the forefront -- reluctantly, she now says.

"Yes," she says, sighing. "I'm in the news again."

In the case, she had argued that a decency consideration was impermissible censorship.

But the Supreme Court, in the case of the National Endowment for the Arts vs. Finley, held in June that the NEA was under no constitutional obligation to fund art that disregards decency standards. "Avant-garde artists such as (Finley) remain entirely free to (shock) les bourgeois; they are merely deprived of the additional satisfaction of having the bourgeois taxed to pay for it," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Finley puts it more graciously: "I lost."

"It's great to be talking to the Tribune about all this," she adds. "My grandfather once was a financial editor on the paper." She continues, almost as a punch line, "He was a Republican."

Actually, Finley, who brings her work "The American Chestnut" to the Athenaeum Theatre as part of Dance Chicago '98 on Thursday, currently finds herself somewhat annoyed at most of the political spectrum.

"What's fascinating (is that) during the Bush administration, the 9th Circuit Court in L.A. ruled in our favor," she says. "Then, the Clinton administration, which could have let our victory stand, chose to appeal."

Finley says she found the long, drawn-out legal process enervating and invasive. "I feel what happened to me, on a psychological level, is similar to the eroticizing of the presidency, the coming out of all these skeletons. I mean, I have a doctorate, I've toured all over the country, I've taught art in theater schools. But there I was going through a deposition when I was eight months pregnant, answering questions such as, `What parts of my body did my fingers actually touch during a performance? Were any men in the crowd aroused?' "

She adds, "There is something going on here, with the far right and the Christian Coalition, in terms of a McCarthy sex police, and that's dangerous." She notes the irony that a president who battled her sexually tinged art is now deep in his own sex scandal. The entire experience left her drained.

"I started to lose my sense of humor," Finley says. "I found the legal process was psychologically damaging. When I lost, there were no phone calls. People weren't asking me for work. I was a loser. What makes me sad is that I feel the country lost. I never looked at this as a career move. I knew I could lose a lot, and I did. But I try to keep the bigger picture in my mind. Alternative spaces all over the country have closed. The Randolph Street Gallery and MoMing (Dance and Arts Center) have closed here, places where I got my start. I'm concerned about the next generation getting their start.

"For people like myself, who are in midcareer, there is a glass ceiling," she says. "I'm excited to be at the Athenaeum, but I feel I should be included in programming at some of the larger institutions. They don't return my phone calls."

Now 42, separated and the mother of a 5-year-old daughter, Finley has written three books and is working on an independent movie she hopes to direct starring Rosanna Arquette. She lives in Nyack, N.Y. "Now I look at myself as someone in the entertainment industry," she says, presumably as opposed to the performance art arena.